State releases millions in grant money for Syracuse school district

Dennis Nett/The Post-Standard File photo. State Education Commissioner John B. King Jr. met with the editorial board of The Post-Standard in September. Today he announced he was releasing $11.5 million in grant money for the Syracuse school district that he had been withholding.

State Education Commissioner John B. King Jr. announced Wednesday he has reinstated $11.5 million in school improvement grants for the Syracuse school district.

King suspended the money in January because the district and its teachers’ and principals’ unions failed to come completely to terms on new job evaluations systems for staff at seven low performing Syracuse schools. The money was targeted for those schools.

The district and its unions continued to negotiate, came up with agreements, submitted them to the state and King accepted them for this year.

King also suspended for all 10 districts in the state that received the grants. He said Wednesday that five of those 10 had the money reinstated: Syracuse, Poughkeepsie, Rochester, Albany and Schenectady.

Syracuse Superintendent Sharon Contreras declined Wednesday to talk about the details of the teacher evaluation system because she had not yet discussed them with Syracuse teachers. Contreras said she was proud of the work the administration did with its unions.

“We got it done and it was a good thing for children. We had a good outcome for kids,” she said.

The new systems are the first wave of a sea change in evaluations statewide. Teachers and principals are, for the first time, about to be rated based in part on student test scores and achievement. Gov. Andrew Cuomo is pressuring school districts and teacher unions to get new evaluations that do that in place at all schools by January.

The Syracuse agreements only cover the staff at the seven low performing schools for this year. In another couple of months the administration and unions have to come up with an agreement for principals and teachers at those schools for next school year, Contreras said.

The district also needs to hammer out agreements on evaluation systems for teachers and principals at all the rest of its schools. Two task forces are working on those systems and are charged with finishing the work by the end of the school year.

Those systems will “represent exactly what this community thinks great teaching and leadership look like,” Contreras said.
Contact Maureen Nolan 470-2185 or mnolan@syracuse.com